Mexico Cooks!

Carmen Titita Ramírez y Restaurante El Bajío, Mexico City

El Bajío's original restaurant is puro folclór (completely traditional and colorful) in its decor as well as its extraordinarily delicious food.  The cardboard Judas (devil figures) are typically burned on Holy Saturday night, but these have survived to keep an eye on you as you dine.

At a recent book presentation at the UNAM Jardín Botánico (Botanical Garden at Mexico's national university),  Mexico Cooks! renewed acquaintance with the deservedly celebrated Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado, founder (with her husband) and owner of Mexico City's Restaurantes El Bajío.  Titita, as she is known to family, friends, and faithful customers, graciously invited us to come for comida at whichever of the eight El Bajío restaurants we preferred, and we chose the founding site, in the far northern part of Mexico City called Azcapotzalco.   We particularly wanted to see the birthplace of the legendary restaurant.

Founded by Titita's husband Raúl in 1972, the highly successful restaurant has now expanded to eight locations in various parts of Mexico's capital city. 

Twenty-nine years ago, when Titita was left a widow with five children, she took over running the restaurant. Over the course of the years, it has become a temple dedicated to the preservation of Mexican recipes, particularly those from her Veracruz homeland.  Her cooking skills, like those of all the best Mexican restaurant owners, were honed in her home kitchen, watching and learning from her mother and other female relatives and her childhood nanas (nannies).  "Mexican food is not about fusion with other cooking styles.  Mix Mexican food with Japanese, or Italian, and what do you get?  Confusion!  Traditional Mexican food is like traditional French or Italian cuisine: recipes and techniques are time-honored formulas carried intact into today's kitchens.  My restaurant cooks might use a blender instead of a metate (volcanic grinding stone) to save time in the commercial kitchen, but the end result, the food on your plate, is the same as it was decades ago."


Titita next to the gorgeous wall of baskets that decorates the Colonia Polanco branch of El Bajío.  After our several-hour multi-course meal at the original location, Titita took us to Polanco to see that site.  "Yes, we'd love to go with you today--but," we begged her, "please, please, don't feed us anything else!"

Because we were Titita's guests, we barely looked at the El Bajío menu.  Titita, a supremely generous hostess, graciously ordered a lengthy tasting menu for us, a selection of some of her clients' favorite items.  The full menu is available at the restaurant's website.

The first course brought to the table was antojitos de banqueta (little sidewalk whims), so called because these treats are normally eaten while you're standing at a street stand.  Clockwise from nine o'clock on the plate, we ate a gordita de frijol inflada (puffed-up thick tortilla, the masa mixed with black beans, served with that tiny dish of smoky salsa de chipotle meco), a garnacha orizabeña (a small tortilla topped with Orizaba-style shredded beef, diced potato, and, in this case, red salsa), an empanada de plátano macho (the masa (dough) of the empanada is made of sweet, ripe plantain which is then filled with black beans and fried), and a panucho yucateco (a small tortilla covered with Yucatecan-style black beans, cochinita pibil, onion and chile habanero).

Next, each of us tried a tasting-menu size portion of cebiche verde de cazón (green ceviche made of dogfish, a kind of shark, marinated in citrus and chile). 

One tiny round empanada rellena con frijoles negros (a round empanada filled with black beans), dusted with Cotija cheese.  The beans were  delicious with the subtle anise flavor of dried avocado leaves.


Arroz con mole de Xico (Mexican red rice with Xico-style mole), accompanied by a tiny serving of chicken breast and slices of plátanos machos fritos (fried ripe plantains).

Mayora Sandra Olvera is in charge of making El Bajío's mole; she's holding a standard-size plate, ready to be served to a restaurant client.  Doña Sandra has been in the kitchen at El Bajío for its entire 40 years.  For more than 30 years, Mexico Cooks! has eaten mole everywhere in Mexico and this extraordinary mole de Xico is by far my favorite.

Two of the members of Los Tuxpeños, a group specializing in traditional music from Veracruz.  They are often at El Bajío to enliven the guests' comida (main midafternoon meal of the day).

A short breather in between courses: I confess that I was ready to be disillusioned by El Bajío.  Whether cracking open a much-ballyhooed best-selling book, planning to see an Oscar-winning movie, or tucking into a legendary restaurant's meal for the first time, I am often guilty of having the preconceived notion that, "It couldn't possibly be as good as the hype."  Let me tell you that El Bajío is at least as good as its publicity.  The atmosphere is lovely, the food is world class, and the service is excellent. 

Titita told me that this little clay pig--although it's not so little, measuring more nearly a meter from snout to tail--hails from Toluca and is used to steam-heat tamales.  The door in the side, once used for carbón (Mexico's charcoal), is now used for an alcohol burner.

Titita and her restaurants have participated in world-wide events and have won every prize conceivable, including the following:

• 1998 "The Amercian Academy of Hospitality Services" Five Star Diamond Award.

• Participated for 10 years in the culinary events of Festival Anual del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México.

• Consultant for various restaurantes in the United States and Europe.

• Active member of the Asociación Mexicana de Restaurantes (AMR).

• Member of the International Association of Professional Chefs (I.A.C.P.) of the USA.

• For three years, demonstrated Mexican cuisine at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, California.

• Represented Mexico in the USA-based television commercials for the campaign "Got Milk" in Los Angeles, California.
• Won recognition as "La Llave Empresarial 2006" granted by  AMAIT y ABASTUR in México.

• Nominated by the New York Times as one of the two great matriarchs of Mexican cooking.

• Won the 2008 and 2009 restaurant business merit prize.

Titita assured me that the menu, the quality, and the prices are the same at all of the eight El Bajío locations, regardless of neighborhood and regardless of clientele. 

Quesadillas de flor de calabaza (quesadillas made with squash flowers, epazote, onion, garlic, and chile jalapeño).  The deep, rich, complicated flavor of these quesadillas was pure Mexico.

Somehow we dived into two of the courses much too fast and the food escaped the Mexico Cooks! camera.  One was a taco of delicious carnitas estilo Tacámbaro (Tacámbaro-style pork) that gave us a taste of our beloved Michoacán, the other, a tasting plate of pescado a la veracruzana (Veracruz-style fish, with tomatoes, onions, and olives), brought us back to Titita's birthplace on Mexico's east coast.

The last touch to a typical meal from the east coast of Mexico: a small dish of frijoles negros refritos (refried black beans), to eat with totopos (tortilla chips) or to roll into a small taco.  One of these is plenty as the final toquecito salado (little salty touch) to a meal such as ours.

And then there was dessert!  We shared two: first, a marvelous individual-size dark chocolate tart filled with cajeta (otherwise known as dulce de leche) and topped with a coffee bean, created by María Teresa Ramírez Degollado (Titita's daughter), her partner Joan Bagur Bagur and their staff at Artesanos del Dulce.


Next, the hands-down best capirotada I have ever eaten.  If you've been around Mexico Cooks! for long, you know that I am a huge fan of this typically Lenten dessert--but wow, this one is stupendous for any time of year.

Titita also gave us a copy of her beautiful cookbook, Alquimias y Atmósferas del Sabor: Alta Gastronomía de doña Carmen Titita (Alchemy and Atmospheres of Flavor: Haute Cuisine of doña Carmen Titita), with superb photo illustrations by internationally known photographer Ignacio Urquiza, Editorial Tiempo Imaginario, México.  First published in 2001, the book won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2002.  The second edition was published in 2009.  As far as Mexico Cooks! knows, the book is presently available only in Spanish.

Alquimias y Atmósferas del Sabor is as exquisite in its presentation as in its recipes, several of which are offered on the menu at all of the El Bajío restaurants.  Try Titita's recipe for empanadas de plátano macho; it's very simple and will make your household and your guests sigh with delight.  Here is Mexico Cooks!' translation of Titita's recipe.  Serve these empanadas with any Mexican main dish you choose and freshly prepared rice; they are marvelous with a rich mole served with chicken or pork.
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Empanadas de Plátano Macho Rellenas con Frijoles Refritos
Plantain Dough Empanadas filled with Refried Beans

Ingredients
3 very ripe platános machos (plantains), skins on
Salt to taste
1 quart water
Enough vegetable oil to fry the empanadas, with a little extra to coat your hands while shaping them

Refried black beans

Special utensil
Tortilla press or rolling pin

The plantains are ready to use when their yellow skins have turned almost entirely black and are showing a bit of mold--just when you might think it is time to pitch them in the trash.

The day before you want to serve the empanadas, cook the plaintains without peeling them in the quart of boiling water.  Allow them to cool overnight. 

The next day, peel the plaintains and discard the peels.  Mash the plantains to make a smooth paste that you will use as the empanada dough.  Rub vegetable oil all over your hands and make 12 little balls of the plantain dough. 

To flatten the dough, put each ball between two sheets of plastic (a cut-open freezer bag would work very well) and flatten into circles with either a rolling pin or the tortilla press.

In the middle of each plantain dough circle, put a tablespoonful of refried black beans.  Fold each empanada in half, completely covering the beans with the plantain dough.  Firmly press the edges together so that the beans cannot escape while the empanadas are cooking.

Heat the oil almost to the smoking point and fry the empanadas until they are a beautiful deep golden color.  Drain on absorbent paper. 

Arrange on a small platter, garnish with a flower or two, and serve.

Makes 12 empanadas as a side dish.

You will love these empanadas and your family will beg for them.
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Click for the El Bajío location nearest you in Mexico City: Sucursales 

When you go, please tell Titita that Cristina at Mexico Cooks! sent you, and give her a hug from me.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.
 

Morelia en Boca en la Boca de Todos :: Everybody's Talking about Morelia en Boca, Part 2

Here's Mexico Cooks!, once again starting at the finish.  As we always say: life is uncertain, eat dessert first.  This particular postre (dessert), the sweet finale to a special Morelia en Boca Friday night dinner at Restaurante LU, is by chef Roberto Santibáñez of Fonda Restaurant in New York. 

The sold-out dinner, titled Luces de New York en Cielo Michoacano (Lights of New York in the Michoacán Heavens), was constantly surprising in its scope and, equal to its name, heavenly in its flavors.  This dessert is a meringue mounted on sweetened cream of queso Cotija (Michoacán's signature artisan cheese) and filled with a mixed-berry compote, and passionfruit ice cream colored with red flowers.  The combination of contrasting flavors was stunning; after the first forkful, everyone at Mexico Cooks!' table simply stared at one another, speechless with delight.

Another plate from Luces de New York en Cielo Michoacano as prepared by chefs Roberto Santibáñez and Lucero Soto Arriaga: fresh Michoacán trout, smoked over guava wood and chilled, garnished with a gaspacho of cucumber, pineapple, avocado, and shredded beets.

Last week Mexico Cooks! introduced you to some of the world-class chefs who stood over the hot stoves at Morelia en Boca 2011.  Today, let's eat!  The festival food--a Mexican combination plate ranging from far-southern Chiapanecan tascalate (see below) to a Baja California tartaleta de chocolate con chile habanero (chocolate and chile habanero tart) to Michoacán's own uchepos con crema y salsa (fresh corn tamales served with cream and fiery sauce)--was as diverse as Mexico's geography.  Three days of non-stop food and drink, all served under an unprecedented blazing ball of central Mexican sun, left us Morelia en Boca participants breathless but wanting more.

Patricia Zepeda accompanied her niece, brilliant young Chiapas chef Martha Zepeda, to Morelia en Boca.  Tía Paty helped staff Chef Martha's stand featuring San Cristóbal de las Casas restaurant Tierra y Cielo.  Bearing up to the challenge of Morelia's intense midday sun, Paty served chilled and refreshing horchata de tascalate to all comers.  I first tasted tascalate at Morelia en Boca.  A sleekly smooth and blessedly cool agua fresca (fresh water) common to Chiapas, it's made of ground tortillas, chocolate, cinnamon, achiote, vanilla, sugar, and water. Some recipes also incorporate ground pine nuts.  In addition to tascalate and several wonderful botanas (appetizer-size nibbles), the booth also offered classic Chiapaneco pox (pronounced and often spelled posh), a fermented and sometimes fruit-flavored knock-your-socks off liquor made of sugar cane.

Demonstrated by chef Betty Vázquez and the team from Riviera Nayarit, this pescado zarandeado (sauced and grilled fish) leapt with color and flavor.  The sauce, an adobo of chiles, garlic, and other ingredients, is brushed onto the skin-on butterflied fish prior to grilling.  Traditionally grilled over a wood fire, the fish is juicy and tender.

During Morelia en Boca, Mexico's food and wine event of the late spring season, ticketholders had the opportunity to taste as much of the bounty of Villa Gourmet as they liked.  Villa Gourmet, a large interior patio at the Palacio Clavijero, overflowed with specially constructed and rustically sophisticated wooden booths where more than thirty providers show off their wares: beer from Belgium, wines from Spain, France, and Mexico (among other countries), and foods from all over Mexico vied for space in our stomachs.  Some attendees concentrated on the numerous wine and beer tastings, while others concentrated on the food.

Bread!  Glorious loaves like these, offered for tasting at Morelia en Boca's Villa Gourmet, are baked by chef Elena Reygadas's Italian restaurant Rosetta, located in Mexico City's Colonia Roma.  Morelia en Boca attendees rapidly found the restaurant's stand at the festival's Villa Gourmet and devoured every crumb.

At Morelia en Boca's Villa Gourmet, Mexico Cooks! talked with Ricardo Serratos of Hotel Real de Minas, San Miguel de Allende, and Elena Reygada of Restaurante Rosetta, Mexico City.

In addition to the daytime Villa Gourmet, the three nights of the festival offered special dinners prepared by internationally-known chefs in conjunction with Morelia restaurants.  The likes of Mikel Alonso (Restaurante Biko, Mexico City), Roberto Santibáñez (Fonda Restaurant, New York), Enrique Olvera (Restaurante Pujol, Mexico City), and Margarita Carrillo de Salinas (Restaurante Don Emiliano, San José del Cabo), to name just a handful, cooked wowzer dinners for those who were lucky enough to get tickets to the rapidly sold out meals.   

 

Mezcal from Chef Pilar Cabrera's Oaxaca Restaurante La Olla, served in seedless, veinless, hotter-than-you-know-where chiles de agua, their rims crusted with sal de gusano, a powerhouse mix of salt, ground maguey cactus worm, and powdered chile.

Simojovel chiles from Chiapas.

An appetizer plate by chef Rodolfo Castellanos, owner of Restaurante Huaje in Oaxaca.  From the left on the plate are mezcal foam, fresh and barely roasted tuna with a coating of chile chilhuacle ashes, and a small salad of slivers of Michoacán's native black-skinned avocado, onion, tiny tortilla chips, and cilantro, all in a piloncillo vinaigrette.  This five-course dinner (titled Pasión a Fuego Lento: Erotismo en la Cocina--Passion over a Slow Fire: Eroticism in the Kitchen), was prepared by Chef Castellanos in conjunction with chef Margarita Carrillo de Salinas and served at Morelia's Restaurante San Miguelito.  The meal included wine pairings from Casa Madero, Mexico's oldest wine grower, with a literary talk about the dinner's title by author José Iturriaga and wine discussions by the extraordinary scholar and sommelier Pilar Meré.


José N. Iturriaga, the delightful and erudite author, historian, and gastronome, signs a copy of his most recent book, Confieso que He Comido (I Confess That I Have Eaten).  Just before the dinner Pasión a Fuego Lento: Erotismo en la Cocina (Passion over a Slow Fire: Eroticism in the Kitchen) at Restaurante San Miguelito, Sr. Iturriaga spoke about the relationship between two hungers, one erotic and the other for food. Photo courtesy Francisco de Santiago, Mexico City.


After the brilliant Saturday night dinner at Restaurante San Miguelito, chefs (left to right) Rodolfo Castellanos, Margarita Carrillo de Salinas and restaurant owner Cynthia Martínez enjoy the happy applause of their guests.

We'll finish with dessert by Margarita Carrillo: tartaleta de chocolate, chile habanero, y almendras con helado de canela hecho en casa (little chocolate tart with chile habanero and ground almonds, served with home made cinnamon ice cream) and Casa Madero brandy.

Note: all links to chefs and  restaurants are for your information only and are not paid endorsements.

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Morelia en Boca en la Boca de Todos :: Everybody's Talking about Morelia en Boca, Part 1

Morelia en Boca 2011 offered three full days and nights of gastronomic conferences, wine and food tasting, and marvelous dinners (with wine pairings) prepared by internationally-known chefs.  Whispers of the glories of this festival-to-come had circulated for an entire year, and Mexico Cooks! had eagerly awaited the event.

Everyone's first question was, "Why a rabbit for the festival logo?" The rabbit, long linked with the rich culture of Michoacán, has several meanings.  First, it refers to the former town of San Juan Parangaricutiro, which was relocated to the former hacienda known as Los Conejos (the rabbits) when the erupting volcano Paricutín destroyed the original town in 1943.  Second, the logo refers to the ancient Purhépecha legend of the rabbit in the moon.  According to the legend, the mischievous rabbit devours the ripe produce in a farming family's fields.  The farmer then traps the rabbit to serve as a family dinner.  The smart rabbit tricks a coyote into freeing him from his cage.  The watching moon--considered to be the rabbit's mother--gives her son the gift of zigzagging and hopping in order to escape the angry, hungry, and desperate coyote.  Just as the rabbit is about to be trapped, the moon drops down a silver ladder that she has knit from spiderwebs.  The rabbit hops high and skips up the ladder, disappearing forever into the moon's embrace.  The coyote is left on the earth to howl his pain, his hunger, his fear, and his desperation, while the rabbit is plainly visible on the shining face of his mother, the moon.  Next time the moon is full, take a look and you'll see him for yourself, still cuddled in the moon's embrace.  The rabbit in the moon, ancient emblem of Michoacán and Mexico, is visible to the entire world.

Mise en place (all previously prepared ingredients in place) for a cooking demonstration, one of many presented at this recent and enormously successful international culinary event .  The pre-measured ingredients that you see here are displayed in tiny dried jícaras (gourds).

The festival paired renowned chefs from as far south as Oaxaca and Chiapas with others from as far north as New York City.  Food writers and photographers from both Mexico and the United States descended en masse on Morelia for the event.  The most common and excited exclamation among wine and culinary participants at the festival--in both Spanish and English--was, "Oh my god, we're friends on Facebook and finally we get to meet in person!" 

From left, Oaxaca's Chef Pilar Cabrera of Restaurante La Olla, Morelia's favorite daughter Chef Lucero Soto Arriaga (Restaurante LU, Morelia), and Chef Iliana de la Vega, of the Austin, Texas restaurant El Naranjo (formerly based in Oaxaca).  The three laughing chefs were mid-presentation at Morelia en Boca.

The group from Cocina al Natural, including Celia Marín, Bertha Herrera, Martha Ponce, Sonia Ortiz, and Ana Luisa Suárez of Vinos Wagner, a sponsor of the website.  Cocina al Natural launched its website with a joy-filled presentation that included video, delightful talk, and chilled white wines from from Vinos Wagner.

Morelia en Boca offered something for everyone with an interest in either food or wine or both.  Daily conferences included panels speaking on topics ranging from the importance and influence of the Culinary Institute of America (Chefs Iliana de la Vega and Roberto Santíbañez) to the launch of the new and wonderful interactive--and very user-friendly--website Cocina al Natural (Celia Marín and Sonia Ortiz).  Equally diverse demonstrations included presentations by chefs Enrique Olvera (Restaurante Pujol, Mexico City), Pablo San Román (Restaurante DO, Mexico City) and the new generation of chefs represented by Rodolfo Castellaños (Restaurante Huaje, Oaxaca) and Marta Zepeda (Restaurante Tierra y Cielo, San Cristóbal de las Casas), and an enormous chocolate sculpture--of our logo rabbit--by premier Mexican chocolate maker and chef José Ramón Castillo.  More than a dozen separate catas de vino (wine tastings) showed off wineries from Mexico, France, Spain, and the United States.  The Belgian brewer Gouden Carolus beamed over its featured offerings of summery wheat beer and truly delicious fruit flavored beers.

Part of the team from Riviera Nayarit, including the outstanding west coast chefs (left to right) Gerardo Sandoval Fernández, Betty Vázquez, and Marco Valdivia.  The Riviera Nayarit stand at Villa Gourmet offered portions of aguachile de camarón (raw shrimp marinated in a sometimes-fiery sauce of jugo de limón and chile serrano), along with a delicious Nayarit-style cebiche topped with spicy Salsa Huichol, one of the sponsors of Riviera Nayarit's visit to Morelia en Boca.

Mexico Cooks! on the job.  Photo courtesy Adriana Pérez de Legaspi.

Food and wine tastings at Morelia en Boca took place at the Palacio Clavijero, a 17th Century Jesuit school.  In the building's second patio, more than 30 charming wooden providers' booths surrounded a multitude of comfortable tables and chairs.  The cost of festival tickets included good-sized tastes (really, as much as you wanted) of both food and drink, including treats from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Nayarit, and Michoacán, Belgian beer, and wines from several countries.

Drop-dead delicious bite-size dark chocolate cups filled with jam handmade from Michoacán-grown blackberries and topped with artisan-made queso Cotija, also from Michoacán.  These little marvels (and a big selection of others) were available at the Morelia Museo del Dulce stand at Villa Gourmet.

Next week, come back for Part Two of the festivities at Morelia en Boca.  Mexico Cooks! will feature the Morelia en Boca dinners prepared by chefs Roberto Santibáñez of Fonda in New York City, Lucero Soto Arriaga of Morelia's Restaurante LU, Margarita Carrillo de Salinas of Restaurante Don Emiliano in Cabo San José, Baja California Sur, and Rodolfo Castellanos of Restaurante Huaje, Oaxaca.

 Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Mexico City Places to Go, People to See, Things to Eat and Drink...

Chocolate a la española (Spanish-style hot chocolate), Café El Popular, 5 de Mayo #40, Centro Histórico.

San Antonio de Padua (St. Anthony of Padua), José Guadalupe Posada.  Collection Carlos Monsiváis, Museo del Estanquillo, Isabel la Católica #26, Centro Histórico.

Pepitorias for sale at San Ángel's delightful Bazar Sábado.

Just a shell of its former self, a shadow of its former glory.  Remains of private home, Colonia Roma.

A bolero is not always a song.  Shoeshine stand, Centró Histórico, DF.

MetroBus stop, Glorieta Insurgentes.  Another kind of shadow.

MetroBus, Glorieta Insurgentes.

Gradas al Atardecer (Stairway at Dusk), Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana, Col. Roma.


Cocktail hour sunglasses from the 1960s, modeled by the vendor.  La Lagunilla.

18th Century barroque Templo de la Profesa, Isabel la Católica esq. Francisco Madero, Centro Histórico.  From the rooftop, Museo del Estanquillo.

Champurrado (atole, a thick, hot corn-based drink, in this instance made with chocolate), Restaurante Flor de Lis, Col. Condesa.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.